Looking for Nymphadora
by quinnablack
Summary: Everyone wants to go to Hogwarts. I want to go with Tonks!
1. Chapter 1

Hamilton, Ontario July, 1977

Willis Black took the top half of the stairway two at a time and jumped from the fourth step down from the landing. He could hear his mother's voice from the basement and she did not sound quite human. She sounded like his cousin George had when he inhaled from a helium balloon , but louder and fighting mad. He heard her angrily squeak his sister's full name, which alarmed but did not suprise him. If his mother had suddenly turned into a murderous munchkin while doing the laundry, Quinna was surely behind it.

Willis Black was nine years old, sandy-haired, tall, spindly and the top of his class in math and science. His sister was four, red headed and a witch. Willis didn't just THINK Quinna was a witch. He had irrefutable scientific evidence. (It wasn't peer-reviewed, but only because he hadn't published.) She had begun levitating her teddy in the general direction of his head when she was 5 months old. It had taken several days before his mother had witnessed it herself and anyone believed Willis's "stories."

He and his Dad had kept a journal from that point on of any unexplained phenomena that happened around her with until the next Christmas, when his grandfather Black suddenly jumped up at the dinner table and cried out "it's happened. It's really happening. Oh I just knew one of you was magic. I thought maybe Willis, but he could just be abnormally bright. No way to be sure, no way to be sure," he muttered, wringing his dinner napkin, "still so young. But you ARE, Quinna! You are a witch! " Quinna Eleanor Black, eight months old and the accused sorceress of the hour, stopped levitating her grandfather's peas, smiled and drooled a large quantitiy of mashed potatoes down her Santa onesie. Aunt Eleanor turned to her husband Bernard (who was rumoured to have been a Psychology major) and anxiously suggested her father had had too much eggnog for a man his age. "Oh, yes, maybe. How old is he again?" Willis's mother jumped at the possibility of changing the subject and pretended to guess he was only 74. Multiple people weighed in on this new, more conventional conversation topic and thankfully went back to ignoring all the children, including Quinna. Willis KNEW his grandfather was actually 81, but being abnormally bright for his age, kept his mouth shut until after dessert was cleared away.

Later that evening, Willis cornererd Grandfather Black by the back stairway and what Dad called the real Quinvestigation began. Magic or rather GFB's lack of it was apparently the Black family secret. Grandfather said all families have secrets. When his family, who were British, all magical, and proud of it, realized he was not, he was quietly disowned. He said he was lucky to have been born into the "good" branch of the Black family, given an untraceable trust fund and sent away to boarding school. He'd had no further contact from any of his relatives except very rare letters from even more rare family members who would admit he existed. When anyone asked about his background, he claimed have been orphaned at the age of eight.

After the Christmas holidays, Willis decided to continue studying his sister's abilities on his own. His Dad had lost interest when he discovered the semi-logical explanation that magic was real, it ran in families, an he didn't have any. Willis didn't have any either, but it still fascinated him.

As he got closer to the basement door, he slowed in his approach. He could clearly hear Quinna giggling, so Mama couldn't be murdering her.


	2. The Basement

Willis quietly descended the stairs, assessing the situation before letting his mother or sister know he was there. Quinna was bobbing between the ceiling joists laughing so hard tears were running down her face. His mother had stopped yelling and was softly muttering "Why, why, why did I say that to her " in the high-pitched voice Willis had heard from upstairs.

"Mama?" said Willis cautiously. Nothing going on in the laundry could possibly be blamed on him by a thinking person, but his mother was clearly not one just now. "Will, I can float!" shouted his sister. "Did you know I could float? If I was outside, could I fly?"

"No, you could NOT, young lady!" squeaked his mother. More hysterical giggling came from the ceiling. Willis had to bite his cheek to keep from smiling. He could laugh at the absurdity of the situation later. RIght now he had to help get his mother's normal voice back and prevent his baby sister from floating off out of an open window. "How did your voice get like that?" asked Willis, ignoring his sister's defiance of the law of gravity for the moment. His mother's face clouded briefly. She said "I told her to come down and said she was not a balloon. I see now that it was an unwise choice of words." Willis bit his cheek again and noticed his mother doing the same thing! "We cannot laugh," his mother whispered urgently. This was difficult because even her whispered voice sounded silly. "Go make sure ALL the windows are closed and come back down." Willis nodded and quickly climbed the stairway back into the kitchen. He checked all the windows and locked all three doors to the outside, just to be on the safe side.

When he returned to the basement, his mother was calmly putting another load of wash in the machine while Quinna continued her floating practice. She seemed to have calmed down quite a bit, no longer giggling uncontrollably.  
"Mama, shall I take Quinna upstairs to work on controlling her floating?" asked Willis, assuming that was his mother's plan. Quinna's accidental magic often wore off as she was further away from it. This might be all they had to do to cure the "munchkin-mouth." Willis was quite certain the floating was no longer accidental. The brother and sister had been secretly working on deliberate levitation of objects since her third birthday and he was sure Quinna would only stop floating when she wanted down. His mother smiled at him and nodded.

The rest of the morning flew by, literally and figuratively. Quinna became quite skilled at swooping down the main staircase and then shooting straight back up to the ceiling of the second floor, looking like a cardinal in her red overalls. Willis was glad he'd closed the blinds as well as the windows. When their mother called them for lunch, it was in her normal voice and Quinna walked through to the kitchen like nothing had happened at all. Lunch was accompanied by the statute of secrecy lecture. The lecture was regularly recited by Mama, Dad and sometimes Willis, himself. Quinna nodded solemnly and aggreed she would never, ever practice floating outside the house.

Dinner that night was also accompanied by the lecture, this time from Dad. Quinna repeated her vow to keep the floating the new Black family secret. Willis considered the fact that there seemed to be a new Black family secret every month lately.


End file.
